AI Quality

Back in the mid-70s, when all sorts of imaginative music could be heard emanating from the city of Canterbury, Hatfield And The North ranked as one of the most interesting groups on the scene. Little wonder, when you consider they featured ex-members of Caravan, Gong, Matching Mole and Egg. It was a short, fascinating trip, with a lengthy genesis, as Hatfield's bassist and singer Richard Sinclair and keyboardist Dave Stewart tell Chris Wheatley

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For Richard Sinclair, the road to 70s Canterbury-based avant jazz-rock-prog band, Hatfield And The North - and beyond - began while he was still at school.

"My father was a singer and entertainer in Canterbury," explains Sinclair from his home in Italy, "and that's how I got called up to the Hopper boys, when I was 15 years old."

The boys in question were future Soft Machine members, Brian and Hugh Hopper. "Their parents went to see my father all the time," says Sinclair, "because he was doing dinner dances in all the posh hotels. He'd just bought me a guitar, and he was talking to Mr and Mrs Hopper. They said, 'Our boys are just beginning a band.' The boys said, 'Come and have a play with us."

That band was The Wilde Flowers, which also featured soon-to-be prog greats Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt. "It was the first time I was introduced to American rock," says Sinclair, "and I'd never listened to jazz before. I heard Out To Lunch by Eric Dolphy, and it just turned my mind, at the age of 16. I didn’t realise music could be played like that. It blew my brains out completely."

Sinclair didn’t stay with The Wilde Flowers for long. He went to college, giving his position in the band to Julian ‘Pye’ Hastings. Fast-forward four years and The Wilde Flowers were no more. Ayers and Wyatt formed Soft Machine, and Pye, Richard Sinclair, and his cousin, keyboardist David Sinclair, decided to record as a new band - Caravan.

"We all worked for six months on the Sevenoaks bypass to earn money," recalls Richard, who recorded four albums with Caravan, including the classic In The Land Of Grey And Pink (1971), before the departure of David Sinclair prompted him to follow suit.